"So they proceeded. And at last, when they embarked in a ship, he scuttled it. [Moses]
said: 'Have you scuttled it to drown its people? Very truly, you have done a grievous
thing! 'He said [to Moses]: 'Did I not say that, indeed, you can never be patient [enough
to bear] with me?'"
— Surat Al-Kahf, 18:71-72

Conception and Perception

This, of course, is a scene from the
Quran's recounting to us of the delightfully instructive story of Moses accompanying the great and mysterious sage
commonly known to us by his natureevoking nickname, Al-Khidr, The Green.
Many have dwelled upon who this "Servant from among the servants" of Allah
might be, from the Buddha, to Gawain's
Green Knight, to the Celtic Cuchulainn
(whom some claim to be the real figure
behind the legends of St. Patrick).

In some, I think, this is to miss the
point. Among the many genuine imports
of this true narrative, however, is the primacy of niyyah, intention, in our lives.

So, what is intention? It is a notion
that springs from within us and which
consolidates in our hearts, emerging
from our bodies as action. If it is formed
with authentic knowledge, it is blessed.
If ill will mingles with it, it is cursed.
Thus it is here, with intention, where
true value resides.

But before I get to intention, allow
me to tell an old joke I like for its illustrative purposes.

A hadith student is walking home
from his studies at Al-Azhar in hisjubbah
and imamah. Along the way, he passes by
a group of young men in a soccer field.
"Ya Shaykh! They call out to him. He goes
to them. "Please. We have an important
soccer game and our referee did not show
up. Do a good deed and referee our game,
and be fair. We see you are righteous person."

The young scholar agrees. But as soon
as the game is on, a player kicks the ball
to the goalie, who stops the shot. "Goal!"
he shouts.

"How can you call it a goal?" the players protest. "It never entered the net! Fear
Allah!"

The referee-shaykh looks at them and
shakes his head. "Don't you people know
anything? 'Innama a'malu bin-niyyat.' Actions are by intention. The first hadith in
SahihAl-Bukhari."

Intention is the engine that propels
a person to deed, be it the solemn offering of an act of worship, or deliberate
mundane motion. Profoundly, it is niyyah
that links our behavior to belief.. .or unbelief. . .or, the most dreaded state among
the believers, hypocrisy.

The testification of faith, La ilaha
illa'Llah, Muhammadan rasulla'Llah,
rolls easily enough from practiced lips,
but it is only the intention that underlies this declaration that hinges it to our
Heavenly prosperity. The postures of salah
are anatomically simply assumed. But our
bowing and bowing down to the ground,
are divinely assessed and accounted in accordance with the present, mindful niyyah
that accompanies them.

The Arabic word 'niyyah ' denotes the
'pit of a date,' a 'fruit kernel' or 'stone,' or
die 'source' from which something proceeds or grows. By extension, it signifies a
'core,' 'center,' or 'nucleus.' Hence, niyyah
resides in our center, in our hearts. There
it germinates into the seeds from which
our actions grow. These deeds include
the conceptions of our minds, the speech
of our tongues, and the willful sensory
perceptions, gestures, and movements of
our bodies toward whatever conceived of
ends.

Thus Allah commands us in the
Quran in Surat Al-Isra': "And you shall
not ever follow that of which you have no sure
knowledge. Indeed, hearing, and sight, and
[conceptions of] the heart—[every act of] each
of these [faculties] shall one answer for [in the
Hereafter] (Surat Al-Isra', 17:36). It is the
conceptions of the heart I want to focus
on. For it is here that we premeditate our
deeds.

If our deliberation is for a good that
is based on knowledge that stems from
revealed truth, we are awarded with blessing. If it is against this in the intertwining
of cither of these elements, we reap the
recompense of sin, if we act on it.

What is important here is that it is
not the act in and of itself that is blessed
or cursed, but the niyyah with which
it is purposed in accordance with one's
knowledge, the word knowledge here
being shorthand for the 'ilm Allah has bequeathed to us in recited and un-recited
revelation, wahy matluw and wahy ghayr
matluw, in the parlance of the usulis, the
scholars who study the principles of Divine Law, meaning the Quran and the
Sunnah.

Allah says: But there is no sin reckoned
against you wherein you err as to this. Rather,
[you are accountable] only for what your hearts
premeditate. And ever is Allah all-forgiving,
mercy-giving (Surat
Al-Ahzab, 33:5).

It is for this reason that intention has
been variously and meaningfully called
by the people of knowledge the "seed of
sincerity," the "root of truthfulness," and
the "vertex (ra's, or head) of faith." As one
writer put it (I summarize): Niyyah is
covert. Only an act's outer, physical results manifest. Its inner, moving parts are
buried silent, its motive hidden to all its
earthly and heavenly observers, save the
One. And He is its ultimate determiner.

To Allah belongs all that is in the
heavens and all that is in the earth. Hence,
whether you disclose what is in your souls or
you conceal it, Allah will call you to account for it.

Repentance remains for bad intentions enacted. But, nonetheless,
the deed is done and accorded its core
value by Allah. What He chooses to do
with it—verily, He is our Master and
we are His servants. Thus He shall forgive whomever He so wills and torment
whomever He so wills. For Allah is powerful over all things (Surat
Al-Baqarah, 2:284).

Worshipful Intention and
Follow-Through

Niyyah , then, sets up an important
dichotomy. Allah alone knows our intention. We human beings see only action.
We may raise our palms to our shoulders
in the commencement of the prayer, but
Allah alone knows if we have truly entered into the solemn covenant of salah
with Him at that moment with good and
guided intention, or if our motives lie
elsewhere.

This explains the initial shock we experience when first we read verse four
of Surat
Al-Ma'un (107): Woe to all those
who pray...

What could this mean? The people
of prayer? These are the blessed! Why are
they recipients of this divine threat? The
closing three verses unveil intention's
infinite implications.

... those who are unmindful about their
prayers...

The actions of the prayer alone are
insufficient. One must first bring full consciousness to the act, both in entering the
state of divine communion and keeping
focused upon the only One worthy of
Worship.

.. .those who only make a show...

Nor is our consciousness that we are
in prayer enough, according to Allah, even
though we are bringing ourselves to pray
before Him. It must not be an empty act,
done for the sake of image or the good
opinion of others. These are corrupted
intentions, but intentions nonetheless.

... while they withhold basic aid [from
people].

Nor does our sincere prayer complete our intention. That intention,
to worship Allah alone in the way His
Prophet, sallallahu alayhe wa sallam,
taught us, must reflect in our sound
mental and spiritual performance of the
ritual prayer, yes. But if it is truehearted,
it needs also to be followed through in all
of life to the earthly purposes of service
to the One; namely, to serve His people,
humankind, and all His creation, for His
sake alone.

The intention of salah yields an unripe fruit if not mentally and spiritually
cultivated to activation in our lives. For
that diligent self-gardening comes to fragrant flower only when its consciousness
and spirit of worship fills the living world
with selfless charitable action, done for
the sake of the One alone, and nothing
else and no other, and when we persevere
in thankless struggle for the fulfillment
of the rights and needs of the other—the
poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed,
the wayfarer, the imprisoned, the war-weary, the overcome.

But the most unheralded virtue of
the good intention (under girded by revealed knowledge) is this: Allah forever
binds it to its good deed, whether or not
that deed succeeds. When the good intention is made to fulfill the letter and the
spirit of worship, it wins for its intender
the Heavenly reward attached to its act
even if the occasion to carry out that good
deed disappears beneath the haze of some
unforeseen, impeding cause.

Not just this, but Allah has decreed
that when our intentions grow malformed
and bend our hearts to some evil, if we
abandon that evil deed for the sake of Allah, He will reward us not acting out our
intention.

Now, human beings have a great propensity to rationalize as good the evil they
want to do. One need only peruse the
news to hear all the noble reasons why
some of us find it necessary to kill, maim,
dispossess, rob, jail, impoverish, silence,
and banish others—all for their own good
or the good of the world, mind you. We,
too, who hold ourselves to be believers,
often justify our own lusts and desires
with the same hyper-reasoning when it
comes to our intentions. But never, ever
can an evil act be legitimized by a good
intention.

A friend of mine once put it this way:
"You don't guzzle the wine to save your
brother from it. You don't knock your
sister unconscious to keep her from hearing or seeing something wicked."

The Renewal of Intention

We tend to think of intention in association with one-time actions, or acts
that we plan to do at specific, usually
quick intervals, like giving charity, saying
a kind word, or aiding someone. These
are important. But some intentions are
tied to long-term endeavors, like committing the Quran to memory, studying
useful knowledge or teaching it to others,
acquiring a beneficial skill, or volunteering in the service of our mosques and
communities, or to defend or uphold
vulnerable people who are at risk, or
who have been falsely accused, by means
of whatever knowledge, skills, resources,
or talents Allah has conferred upon us,
and doing this for the sake of Allah alone.
In the ordinary course of life and being human, these kinds of intentions cannot be made merely once. They must be
remade periodically (usually frequently)
in order to renew our hearts. The long-term good intention requires that we
consciously remind ourselves of our
original purpose in our endeavor, for example, as a community or organizational
leader, as a helper, or as someone who
has been blessed with a special education
or craft through which he serves people
for the sake of Allah.

This might become particularly confusing in our mind and in the minds of
others when it comes to receiving pay for
what we do. Our intention still remains
vital. Indeed, it may well be even more
critical in such circumstances. We should
not become confused by our pervasive
commercial culture, which attaches monetary value and worth to everything from
ideas to time.

This cuts two ways. On one hand, our
intentions should at all times be clear and
good—and the outcomes good. On the
other, we should not fall victim to vacating
our good intention by ourselves being the
ones who unfailingly attach an invoice to
our ever "higher service." Our attitude
should be indeed, we sustain you for no other
reason than we seek the Face of Allah. We desire from you neither recompense nor thanks (Surat
Al-Mursalat, 76:9). This is the way of the
prophets and believers before us, and its
inspiration must be revitalized in all our
hearts.

If we permit the intentions of our
long-term endeavors to fade in our hearts,
they may disappear altogether and be
silently replaced by our innate avarice
and ulterior selfishness. This happens a
lot easier than one may think. In such
a case, the true worth of the deeds we
formerly seeded with good intentions
will have taken bad root, and our once
beautiful, virtuous endeavors will have
come to ugly immoral ends—not, perhaps, in the ken of people, but definitely
in the Eyes of Allah, with whom actions
are finally acquitted by their intention,
even as the Prophet, sallallahu alayhe wa
sallam, forewarned.

It is this truth of intention and action
that Al-Khidr, Moses' erstwhile teacher,
knew, and that Moses did not in these
specific circumstances, for the former ha"d been granted a special mercy from
the Providence of Allah and Allah had
taught him much knowledge 'min laduna,'
from Our own (SuratAl-Kahf, 18:65).This
underscores (1) the imperative of 'ilm, or
revealed knowledge as the basis for our
intentions and the actions tied to them,
and (2) that deeds in and of themselves
are, in fact, neutral, and that it is intention
that ensouls them.

Thus in Al-Khidr's scuttling a ship
that was transporting them, killing a boy
without retribution or provocation, and
spontaneously building up a crumbling wall
for a people who wronged them by refusing the two travelers' request for provision
and hospitality, Moses was at a loss for the
motives, but not Al-Khidr. The Green One
dismisses his objecting prophet-pupil, but
not before disclosing to him the guided
intentions, based on divine knowledge, that
attached to his every seemingly inexplicable
and wrong deed.

Yet when his intentions were clarified,
so too became the high virtue (and the
certain divine reward) of all his actions.

*****

Article
provided by Al Jumuah Magazine, a monthly Muslim lifestyle publication, which
addresses the religious concerns of Muslim families across the world.

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